He speaks with authority or he does what he says on the tinAs someone who suspects that he was an anarchist in a former life the word authority does not always sit very well with me. I speak in jest but there is no getting away from the fact that for most people authority is something of a dirty word, but not when applied to Jesus. The reason I think so is simple. The powers that be do not always practice what they preach. Just yesterday the news channels were abuzz with the news first reported by the Sun that Baron John Sewel, Deputy Speaker of the Lords, was ‘filmed snorting cocaine with two prostitutes.’ Jesus always practiced what he preached and told it as it was. Time and again we hear that Jesus, and today’s Gospel is no exception, ‘spoke with authority.’ As St Paul says in the first reading, ‘God never meant us to experience the Retribution, but to win salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that, alive or dead, we should live united to him.’